E c tubb, p.2
E C Tubb, page 2
find out just how hard they can be."
"I know."
The admission gave him victory, but he did not make the mistake of pressing it too hard. She could see him marched back to hell and think her career cheap at the price.
"Get me out of here," he said. "Get me some decent clothes and take me somewhere I can feel human again. And tell me what all this is about."
* * * *
The first took time, the second money, the third cooperation she was reluctant to give.
"My job was to get you," she said. "The details will come later."
"But you know them?"
"Some of them. Enough to know how important this is. Enough to be scared."
They sat on the terrace of a hotel which emulated a mountain in its soaring flight toward the stars.
Facets of crystal caught and magnified the lights of distant beacons and the transient gleams of passing aircraft. Erica's hair shone with burnished perfection in the brilliance; her face was angelic.
The illusion was created by too many lonely hours, Varl knew; he busied himself with the meal. The woman had ordered and the table was loaded with a profusion of dishes, each holding a succulent delight. Varl probed with the pointed sticks provided, lifting, tasting, recognizing flavors and discovering tastes he had never known existed.
"Luxury," he said. "Who is footing the bill?"
''I'm allowed expenses."
"That isn't answering my question."
"What does it matter? Call it reparation. A bribe. Compensation."
"And you?"
"I don't come with the meal." For a moment her face froze to match her eyes. "Don't get the wrong idea, Varl. You can push too hard."
"I was curious as to who was backing you." He speared a morsel of meat and chewed, not speaking again until he had swallowed. "The Pui-Chi Consortium valued that cargo at about three times its loaded worth. They might have had the idea that I cached it. A meal, a pretty woman, some money spent in bribes -- some would think it a good investment."
"Did you? Cache the cargo, I mean?"
His shrug matched the enigma of his smile.
"Not that you'd tell me if you had," she said. "But it doesn't matter. I'm working for Earth Confederation, and all expenses are taken care of. Incidentally, we leave tomorrow morning. Early, I'm afraid, but I didn't think you'd object."
"I don't."
"No." She looked at the ground lying dark below the terrace, at the strings of lights, the condominiums, the shopping malls, the industrial complex. "Civilization," she mused. "It looks so safe, yet how thin is the veneer. Sometimes, when I realize just how thin, it scares me." Then, abruptly, she said,
"Did you find it hard to kill?"
"I learned how in the Venegian Sector."
"Things," she said. "Insects -- it isn't the same."
He made no comment, lifting his glass to sip at his wine; the light from the crystals adorning the building illuminated his face and gave it a harsh bleakness.
"You must have been young then," she said. "During the war, I mean. Little more than a boy. And yet you learned to kill -- or so you say. What did they look like? Wasps? Spiders? Ants?"
"Men," he said. "You've been reading the propaganda. They weren't men, but they looked like old-time knights in armor. Their exoskeletons were smooth and black and gleamed like polished metal, and when they bled they oozed red. Real blood just like ours. Only their shapes were different."
"And their breeding habits."
"And the way they looked after each other," he admitted. "They put us to shame. The damned war should never have started, and it should have ended much sooner than it did. Too many men died out
there. Men and Venegians, kids, babies, grubs, women, but people, all of them." He emptied his glass and paused with his hand over the bottle. "I've had enough."
"Go ahead if you want. I'll take care of you."
"Orders?"
"That, if you want."
"I'd rather talk."
"And I know what about. But leave it. The Comptroller will tell you what all this is about, and he won't thank me for having interfered. Or for telling you about Polar North. In the meantime, I suggest you do your best to relax. You're far too tense. Can you swim?"
They sported in water the temperature of blood, then plunged through misty curtains into a freezing chill to dive into tubes of electronic forces which spun them about and spat them into pools alive with golden fish and fronds of delicate weed. And later they walked on the upper promenade to look at the stars through panes of magnifying crystal, then went to sit in a garden heavy with the scent of nocturnal blooms.
"The cargo was contaminated," he said abruptly. "Do you know what a tenge is?"
"A parasite, isn't it?"
"One yielding a rare and expensive compound. Not just a perfume but a scent keyed to the natural exudations so as to accentuate the pheromones. Wearing it, a woman -- any woman -- is irresistible to any partner she desires. And no woman can deny a man using it anything he wants. The Pui-Chi were smuggling a consignment of eggs in the cargo, but something went wrong. The things hatched ahead of time."
"Parasites," she said. "I begin to understand."
"They use living creatures for hosts. When gravid, they vent their eggs into the bloodstream. Once distributed about the body, death is inevitable."
"But newly hatched eggs?"
"They'd used a dog to harbor them. It had remained alive while being eaten away inside. I had passengers to think about, women and children. The scum I killed had been set to guard the consignment.
Dead, they couldn't argue." In the shadows he saw the gleam of her eyes. "What would you have done?"
"I don't know. The same, I guess -- no, I lack your courage. Does that make me a coward?"
"No. You'd have done the same if you were faced with it."
"I wish I could be as sure of that as you are." Her hand found his own, fingers closing, giving comfort with their warmth. "So you destroyed the cargo -- but why not tell what happened?"
"I did, but I'd done too good a job. No evidence," he explained. "My word against that of the Pui-Chi and the lie-detector evidence was ruled inadmissible because of my space-service conditioning.
Bribery, but it worked, and I'd carried a couple of bleeding hearts who swore I was a martinet. They didn't like the way I'd ordered them around when they broke regulations."
"It's over now," she said.
He was bitter. "Is it?"
"How do you mean?"
"I'm out of jail but still have to pay the price. How long do I need to pay?"
"Maybe all your life," she said. "But there are compensations."
Later, in the snug comfort of her bed, she reached out to touch the hard contours of his body and found him sleeping like a child. But before dawn he woke her with his frenzied screams.
--------
*CHAPTER 3*
NASIR Kalif was a hundred and thirty-two years old but artifice had lifted a barrier against the years. A mechanical heart beat within his chest, chemicals laved his blood, and fresh organs had replaced the old. Only his brain remained untouched -- the unique organ which housed the mind and the conceptions it entertained, the power which had made him the Comptroller of Earth Confederation.
"Later you will be given a complete mental and physical examination," he said to Varl. "For now, tell me how you feel."
"Relieved."
"At having left Voltan? I can appreciate your sentiments. A soft and congenial world but one cursed with peculiar customs."
"Imported from Earth."
"True." Kalif made a small gesture with a hand as thin and as curved as the claw of a bird. "The Confederation embraces a variety of worlds, and on each we have stamped our imprint. Subjective punishment holds certain desirable attributes, but, like most things, it can be abused." He paused. "I understand you don't sleep well at nights."
"I have dreams. Nightmares."
"Of course. They will be taken care of."
"By Major Borken?" Varl met the dull brown eyes of the old man. "I must congratulate you on your choice of messenger."
"She is efficient."
"And was hand-picked for the job." Varl made it a statement, not a question. "You knew of my preference for blondes, for tall, shapely women, for a personality stronger than mush but not as hard as steel. Why go to so much trouble?"
"You don't know?"
"She refused to tell me. Said that you would explain it all at the right time." Varl looked at the room, the instruments it contained, the furnishings. "Here?"
"Later, but now let me show you my garden."
It was a fantasy in ice. Mutated plants clung to blue-white surfaces, spreading flame leaves over chill hummocks, and sprouting in lacelike fountains from masses of frozen water. An elaborate maze of paths wound through Polar North.
"A place in which to think," Kalif mused. "One in which to dream. You are comfortable?"
Varl nodded; beamed and focused heat provided localized warmth.
"Problems," the Comptroller continued. "At one time they threatened the very basis of society.
Civilization had become too complex and skills too specialized. Local difficulties were lost in the general pattern, and one area could starve while another enjoyed a glut. Communication and cooperation provided the structure of salvation, but it required more. A means to assimilate a variety of cultures, to absorb the impact of newly opened worlds, was needed. The discovery of the hyperdrlve was a double-edged sword."
Varl made no comment as the old man fell silent. Beneath their feet tiny crystals of ice made harsh crunching sounds, and Varl's hands flexed in automatic response. Ahead, masked by billowing curtains of vapor, something reared at the heart of the maze.
"A mixed blessing," Kalif continued. "New worlds for the taking, but with each came fresh problems.
The trouble in the Venegian Sector was but one of many. Before that, we had a dozen conflicts, each of which could have led to destruction. Luck saved us, but we needed something more. The computers provided it."
"Records," Van said. "Completed details of everything everywhere. Each individual docketed, assessed, filed, registered. The lawless could be isolated and weeded out, the misfits noted and action taken, the desired pattern imposed on entire populations."
"Communication and cooperation."
Varl shrugged. "There is another word for it."
"Emasculation?" Kalif smiled. "No, I do not read minds, but I've learned to recognize the obvious.
Yet, what was the alternative? War, conflict, or the risk of exotic disease creating a biological holocaust.
Conformity is the pattern of every civilization. The lesson is to be found throughout history."
"And the danger. How many civilizations have fallen to the uninhibited barbarian? How -- "
Varl broke off, his eyes narrowing, one hand lifting to grip a down-pointing spear of ice which snapped as he closed his fingers. "Brittle," he murmured. "Once you establish a pattern, you build in destruction. Unless a thing can bend, it must break."
"So?"
"Ask your machines. They know everything. But if they know so much, why do we need you?"
"Because a machine can never be more than you make it. If it ever grows beyond its predicted design you no longer have a machine, you have life." Kalif paused. "But that is not our problem. And to answer your question, I am needed because someone has to be able to scan the total pattern. Let me illustrate. On Hadjao a plant mutated to produce a substance which affected the inner membrane of the nose. It was harmless but it altered the sense of smell. As a result the sale of coffee in that area fell to a minute portion of the anticipated amount. There was no correlation, you understand, no hard evidence, just financial ruin facing the growers and shippers in that region. Mechanical investigation might have found the association, given time. I discovered it within hours of its having been brought to my attention.
The difference between detection and intuition. Machines have one, but we have the other. And I have more than most. Which is why I am the Comptroller of Earth Confederation."
"And I am -- what?"
"For the moment a pupil. Shall we press on?" The path widened, the flowers changing to a denser profusion of exotic blooms -- stars, cones, and suspended globules touched with a variety of blazing color. They were mutations and imports from a host of worlds. Banks of moss softened the chill of the ice with fronds and tendrils; lichens made mosaics and geometrical shapes of staggering complexity.
As they approached the curtains of vapor, Varl leaned back to study the height of whatever it was the coiling mist kept hidden. The air had grown warmer, and he guessed that permanent heat sources monitored the area. He wondered at their purpose and wondered, too, why the Comptroller had led him to the enigma.
He followed Kalif into the mist and through it, to stand in a clear space looking up at a statue.
"Ludwig Kreutzal," Kalif said.
"I know."
"A genius -- did you know that too?"
"He invented the hyperdrive -- the hydee as we call it now -- three hundred years ago, give or take a decade. I've seen his photographs in books."
"But not a statue?"
"No."
"Can you guess why?" Kalif did not wait for an answer. "More history, I'm afraid. After the Debacle at the turn of the century, it was thought that all personality cults were too dangerous to be tolerated. So no statues were permitted, no monuments, nothing which could be turned into a shrine. In a sense it was a reversion to old, long-held principles of a religious nature. But Kreutzal was too great a man to be ignored, and, well, the Comptroller has certain privileges. Privacy, for one. What do you think of it?"
The statue was -- awesome. Not in size, though it was too large to take in at a glance, but in stature, expression, and assembly of its parts. But most awesome of all was the face itself.
Eyes open, face uptilted a little, the statue stared into the infinite as if seeing the open doors of paradise. The face was of a man transformed, touched with the warmth of Promethean fire, gifted, granted a fragment of the divine, of a man who had found a key for the locks which held man prisoner on a tiny world.
Varl lowered his head and stared unseeing at the ground. He saw only the face -- the radiant visage glowing as if illuminated from within. The cheeks were sunken, the temples pronounced, the mouth thin, the nose beaked, the eyebrows a hard ridge above the eyes. The face was intense, almost ugly, yet the sculptor had used his artistry to capture in stone the essential essence of the man, to freeze his genius as long as the material would last.
"Who?"
"A madman," Kalif said. "A student tormented by visions and unable to accept the restrictions of society. So he had to be called mad. But I think, at the end, he found happiness."
As Ludwig Kreutzal must have found happiness. Varl studied the features again, his admiration for the sculptor growing as he noticed delicate touches he had missed at first. Mad, the Comptroller had said, but there had been bitterness in his voice. A relative? A son? Who else could have gained such close cooperation?
Varl said, "Is he dead? The sculptor, I mean."
"Yes."
"A pity." Varl touched the stone. "It's an even greater pity that his work must remain hidden. It isn't fair to Kreutzal. No photograph can do him the same justice. We should respect our benefactors."
"You think him that?"
"He gave us space, a universe to play in, worlds without number to make our own. If any man was a hero it is Kreutzal. He should be honored above all others -- and you hide him behind a curtain of mist.
An old man -- " Varl broke off. "Never mind."
"An old man shaking in fear? Is that what you were going to say?"
"Leave it."
"Why? Haven't you the courage to speak your mind?" Kalif glanced up at the statue, his eyes lingering on the face. "Three hundred years," he whispered. "A man born to stand among those precious few who altered the world with the sacrifice of their lives, lifting their fellows from the mud and slime of savage ignorance. And yet, at times I wonder if we would be happier if he had never lived. Do we really need the stars? To travel so far and so fast? Build so high? Live so long? Change so much? And what of those others on distant worlds? The Venegians? The Chard? The amphibians of Hermapolis? The avians of the Munchian Cluster? Would they have been happier without the advent of man? Have they reason to bless Kreutzal's name?"
"Natural progression," Varl said. "The strong survive."
"Jungle law."
"It works."
_"'Those shall take who have the power,'"_ the Comptroller quoted. _"'And those shall keep who can.'_ The harsh creed of a barbarian -- and Kreutzal was one at heart. What else is a conqueror? He sent the sword of his invention in a bright challenge to every sentient creature in the universe. We are man! What we want we take! And if some race, somewhere, should pick up our gage, what then?"
"We fight."
"And maybe perish." Kalif shook his head. "Why should we be the exception? Before us, the great reptiles dominated the earth, and who knows what reigned before them? How many other races have flowered to vanish and leave nothing but unreadable smears on adamantine stone?"
Varl did not answer. Instead he said, "I was brought here for a purpose, and I think it's time I was told what it is."
"Impatient?"
"Curious."
"As Kreutzal was curious." Again the old man looked at the statue. "Look at him, Varl. Study that face. Remember it. The visage of a saint, some would say, but there can be no doubt it belonged to a genius. I want you to find him."
The air was warm despite the surrounding ice, but Varl felt the touch of a sudden chill. An old man, lost in dreams, his abilities dulled by accumulated years, the most powerful man in Earth Confederation --
insane?
"The machines selected you," Kalif said. "From all the millions of suitable types, you were chosen as the one most likely to succeed. That is why I had you released from Voltan. Paroled, rather; there is a slight distinction. Need I explain what it is?"
